I want to convey to my students that what poetry does above all, and Roethke above others, is help us see the world, not outside of ourselves as much as in our hearts, and in our own thoughts and words and expressions.

The three deaths of Susan Taubes occurred in one week.

In Hong’s essay on her fraught relationships with female friends during college, the topic of mental illness goes largely unaddressed—as it often is in Asian American culture.

The City We Became isn’t simply a jarring attack on white privilege, it’s a necessary nudge towards reality…By inverting white savior tropes, Jemisin shows how systemic advantages have weakened cities while diversity remains their strengths.

I’ve never had an office, apart from the sad, windowless closet I occupied as a grad student. I don’t own a desk. Some days I work at my kitchen table, but more often I sit on my couch or in bed with my computer on my lap. Music, rather than location, is what grounds me as I write.